Morning Read: Local school chief chides Cuomo for education hubris
As Karen DeWitt reports this morning for NCPR, Governor Andrew Cuomo is taking on the state’s public education system, calling for a more kid-focused approach.
Cuomo set up a potential fight with the education establishment during an otherwise mostly congenial State of the State speech, when he chided them for what he says is putting their own interests before those of school children.
He told the crowd that superintendents, principles, teachers, and janitors have their own lobbyists.
“Even the bus drivers have lobbyists,” said Cuomo. “The only group without lobbyists are the students.”
But not everyone appreciated the governor’s claim that he would serve as the chief advocate for New York school kids.
The President of the teachers unions does take issue with Cuomo’s claim that the governor is the only true lobbyist for the school children.
“Students have lobbyists in their parents, they have lobbyists in terms of their teachers who see them every day,” said [Richard] Iannuzzi. “And they could use a lobbyist in government, so we welcome the governor to join us.”
Tupper Lake school superintendent Seth McGowan went a step farther, according to the Plattsburgh Press Republican, chiding the governor for his hubris on the issue.
Seth McGowan, who heads Tupper Lake Central School District, was insulted by that part of the State of the State address on Wednesday.
“What gives him the credentials to be a lobbyist for the kids?” McGowan told the Press-Republican. “Does he have any experience or knowledge of public education in New York state? He has no knowledge for understanding how schools work.”
So what do you think? Is Cuomo’s aggressive stance on public school reform welcome — or his rhetoric counterproductive?
It was definitely hubris on his part. Certainly the teachers have advocates but anyone who knows teachers knows they wouldn’t do the job if they weren’t advocates for the kids.
This is nothing new. In every election campaign or proposal for reform in NY the governor and legislature run against the civil servants involved but the real problems are generally the politicians themselves. Then after they run the civil servants into the ground they expect them to enthusiastically embrace whatever “new” ideas the pols pushed through.
I’m not impressed by Andrew Cuomo. His dad had a great intellect and knew the issues. He was one man I’d never want to be in a debate with. Andrew? Not so much. He’s better than Patterson. He’s brought some order to Albany, but mostly he seems like your average politician to me.
If the Governor is up to it and wants real change, he could dump everyone on the Board of Regents and everyone at SED, dump them all without any pensions, insurance or any other benefits and start over with new people at much lower salaries and fewer benefits.
The teachers are not the problem.
Also, file endangering the welfare of children charges against parents whose kids aren’t doing well in school.
When it comes to teaching, the order of importance is first the student, then the parents and then the teachers.
SED and the Regents are the least important of all.
I listened to most of the speech, and that bit about being the lobbyist for the children really came off as either very ignorant or very hypocritical, or both. A little like when my former colleagues in the teaching profession threatened various actions at contract time in order to get more money and benefits, claiming all the while whining, “We’re only doing for the CHILDREN!”
Mr. McGowan and every public school employee has a right to take offense to the gov’s comments. As myself and many in this blog have stated countless times before, the State Education Dept. and the Board of Regents and their obsession with standardized testing and unfunded mandates are the biggest problem with regard to the New York State public school system.
And if you insist on reform, at least suggest an original idea besides the usual tripe of “forming a committee.” Good god if I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard someone in Albany suggest this in reference to addressing education reform, I could replace the amount of state aid the gov took from schools in the last budget.
C’mon folks — this part of the speech was yet another expample of the master electrician in the switchroom. It’s low-hanging fruit to go after superintendents, school boards, and to a different extent — teacher unions. Supers and school boards have limited lobbying clout in Albany — not so for the teacher unions. But couple what he said — with what he failed to address — unfunded or underfunded mandates — which was promised to be coupled with the 2% property tax cap. The Gov dropped the “Final Report” of his Mandate Relief Task Force the day before xmas — no one noticed. The report is pathetic. He now pivots to the “Mandate Relief Commission” which will do what? The state loads up school districts with mico-managing teacher and principal eval requirements — but then wants to crush the administration needed to effectuate meaningful evals. And the students — well — this will work out well: with the tax cap squeezing down headcount and program in school districts all across the state — he will be pitting general ed constituencies vs special ed constituencies — because lots of special ed is mandated — and outside the control of school distrcits — general ed not so much. If left alone — these “reforms” will relegate public schools to educate only classified students — and the general ed population will be left with no alternative but to go private. Nice, huh?
Here is a good place to start reducing the cost of education to NYS.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesmarshallcrotty/2011/12/22/no-educator-left-behind-pearson-leading-scorer-of-standardized-tests-under-indictment/
Cuomo says “He told the crowd that superintendents, principles, teachers, and janitors have their own lobbyists”.
I’m not sure that statement is inaccurate. I’ve sat on a school board and was a supporter of teacher’s agendas. That changed somewhat when I sat on a teacher’s contract negotiating committee. It would be eye-opening to the public if these contract negotiating sessions were held in public.
I’m convinced education is not going to change/improve until we get merit-based pay for teachers instituted and we have a way of removing the lesser performing teachers.
In support of my argument please see:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/06/education/big-study-links-good-teachers-to-lasting-gain.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ei=5043&partner=EXCITE
PNE, as a supporter of the concept of labor unions, I agree it can be frustrating to see some unions acting against the best interests of their members and/or their institutions. Some of this comes about in response to heavy-handed management, and it would be hard to argue against a claim that, if you gave management the right to remove lower-performing teachers, they would use it to go after teachers they don’t like for reasons other than performance. The history of labor relations is littered with bad behavior on both sides.
Merit-based pay sounds good, and I’m sure can work well sometimes, but since it is inherently based on some kind of measurement of merit, it would be all but certain to reduce to yet another force pushing teachers to teach to the test.
Merit pay sounds like a great idea if you ignore the fact that quality teaching is but one factor of student success. The biggest factor, and the one always ignored when discussing education reform, is the family support system. And since the family structure has been collapsing for years in this country, we’ll never solve our education crisis (and it is a crisis) until we address this problem. It’s an extremely hard nut to crack and it’s precisely why it’s typically ignored by so called reformers.
Now, that’s not to say that there shouldn’t be reforms in how we remove incompetent teachers and administrators from districts. Teacher tenure and extremely costly procedures for removing administrators need reform for sure.
I support unions and I’m a member of a union. But teaching is a profession, not a blue collar job. Sit in on a teachers contract negotiating session and you will not see professionals present, you will see blue collar workers.
I’m guessing that some means of evaluating teacher performance can be found. It’s been done successfully in other school districts. I’m also fairly sure that employees in other industries are evaluated based on merit.
“Teaching to the test”. I am so sick of that phrase. We have a curriculum in NYS that is supposed to be taught. Then there are tests that determine how well the material was learned. What are you supposed to do, teach to something else? If you don’t like the curriculum then fix it.
Parents are very important in education – especially elementary education. But it’s not that complex. Read to your child, limit TV time, and make sure they do their homework.
Well I do agree about having a clear way to measure teacher performance. But before you get there we have to realize that public schools are no longer about teachers. So called teachers unions today are not made up of teachers. The emphasis in schools on teaching sounds kind of basic but that is not what is happening. So before we go nuts trying to measure the classroom teacher, lets start focusing on the classroom.
What I am saying is less counselors, less janitors, less coaches, less administrators, less special ed teachers, less reading teachers and on and on, we need to get back to the CLASSROOM where education actually happens before we start trying to pick out one small subsection of public education, classroom teachers, and measuring only them. They need support first.
Anyone who is not in the classroom as a teacher should not be in a “teachers union”.
Merv,
How about anyone who doesn’t work with kids shouldn’t be drawing an educational paycheck.